JonDMiller
Publisher/Founder
The Iowa Men and Women's teams were on the road Saturday night and each came away with hard fought wins.
First, Fran McCaffery's charges topped Drake 59-52 at the Knapp Center in Des Moines.
For three-quarters of the first half, you could have called the arena the Nap Center, as neither team played what you would consider to be inspired basketball.
Iowa jumped out to a 14-0 lead just 4:31 into the game and also led 19-9 with 10:47 to go in the first half. Iowa did not score its 20th point until there was just 5:28 to go. Bryce Cartwright hit a jumper at the halftime buzzer to give Iowa a 24-19 break at intermission.
Iowa shot 32% from the floor in the first half to just 29.2% for Drake. Iowa was 2-10 on treys while Drake was 2-12.
In the second half, Drake took an early 30-28 lead with 15:28 to play, much to the chagrin of an incensed McCaffery, who was very animated during several time outs on the evening.
A Melsahn Basabe dunk made it 45-40 with 5:57 to go as Iowa eventually pulled away late with solid defense, getting the lead back to 57-47 with :44 seconds remaining. Drake hit a desperation three and scored a cheap basket on a lazy Iowa turnover with the game out of reach.
Iowa was led in scoring by Matt Gatens with 19 points, the lone Hawkeye to score in double figures. Jaryrd Cole had five points and 11 rebounds, while Basabe scored nine points, seven in the second half as the Hawks worked the ball to him down low. Eric May had just five, as he picked up two first half fouls and played just 12 first half minutes and tallied just two minutes of playing time in the second half; he just didn't seem to be in the flow on Saturday night.
Iowa committed 18 turnovers, 11 coming in that sloppy first half. Drake had 16. Iowa won the battle of the boards 34-28 including an 8-6 advantage on the offensive glass. Iowa went to the line 25 times in a tightly called game where the home team had 21 fouls called against them to 16 for Iowa. The Hawks made 17 of their free throw attempts to Drake's 5-8 from the line. The Bulldogs hoisted 29 three point attempts, making just seven while Iowa was 4-16. .
Drake clearly felt it needed to slow the tempo down and force Iowa to execute in the half court. They were able to do that as Iowa had just eight assists on 19 baskets, attempting just 45 shots. There were just 13 fast breaks points scored in the game, 7 by Drake and 6 by Iowa.
Iowa beat in state rivals Drake and Northern Iowa while scoring under 60 points, something you might have expected in the previous three seasons.
Gatens was 7-13 from the floor, his first game of the season without a brace on his non-shooting hand. He played a team high 38 minutes.
With the win, Iowa improved to 6-5 on the season and will host Louisana Tech on 12/21 at 7:05, a game to be seen on bigtennetwork.com.
Prior to the mens game tipping off the 15th ranked Iowa women played a road game at South Dakota State. It was a physical first half with Iowa leading by just one point at the break, 25-24. Morgan Johnson scored 15 of Iowa's 25 points while Kachine Alexander, Kelly Krei and Jamie Printy combined to score just five first half points, all of them from the All American candidate Alexander. Iowa was 0-13 on its first half three point attempts.
Johnson continued her hot hand in the second half and finished the game with 26 points and seven boards. Printy scored 11 second half points while Alexander scored just six points on the night in 33 minutes of action. Kamile Wahlin had 12 while Krei grabbed eight boards; Alexander had nine caroms as Iowa won 65-54.
Iowa was +10 on the glass, including a seven board advantage on the offensive end which led to a 13-2 second chance advantage on the scoreboard. Iowa was just 3-24 from three point range and 16-24 from the line.
Lisa Bluder's Hawkeyes improved to 10-1 on the season and will play at Drake on 12/20, a game that will be televised on Mediacom.
It wasn't a pretty night of basketball for either team, but both squads are happy to head back to Iowa City with the 'W' flag flying.
